


Belle Epoque

by Samarkand12



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Agatha in Paris, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-02-06 22:44:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 19,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12827706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samarkand12/pseuds/Samarkand12
Summary: What if instead of going east, Barry Heterodyne heads west for sanctuary?  Paris may never be the same.





	1. Bienvenue a Paris

One step after another.  
  
That was all he could do now. He had had adventures beyond count. He had visited realms seldom seen by Europans. He had defeated monsters dreaded by the world. Now all he could do was plod along the road beneath the stars. All he could do was clutch her tight to him. It was a mercy that she slept. One more step was what he concentrated on. The end was coming. He had staved off her servants in the last ambush. But there had been a final toll. He could feel the spider venom doing its lethal work. What chemicals he had on him had staved off the worst of it so far.  
  
One more step.  
  
One more step.  
  
"Halt, m'sieur!"  
  
He looked up. Walls. A gate. _Douanes._ Men in purple livery, with a golden clank standing behind them.  
  
One more step.  
  
"Mon dieu, he is--"  
  
"I am Barry Heterodyne. I have time on my acc--"  
  
One more step.  
  
Across the line.  
  
Then no more steps.  
  
++++  
  
Even dead, Heterodynes were so amazingly troublesome.  
  
Simon Voltaire glared at the corpse laid out on the slab before him. He would have attempted revival to prize the man's secrets from him. The poison that had killed him and the chemicals concocted to stave off their effects made that a lost cause. Exploratory investigations of the brain within the dead man's skull revealed extensive damage. There would be no advantage in bringing back a psyche that would--optimistically--be a drooling imbecile with no coherent memories to mine. The Master of Paris sighed at the waste. On top of that, he had to personally attend to the memory-wipes of the customs guard and arrange a purge of the central Gens d'Armes archive. No-one else could be trusted to do those tasks without needing memory-wiping of their own. All that required time that took him away from his city and works.  
  
Through a sensory link, he heard a sniffle from the holding room in one of the Awful Tower's infirmary labs. A minor shift of will brought an image of the girl to mind. She seemed like such a harmless thing. No more than eight, she was a chubby girl with blonde hair with a touch of red to it. A cowlick stuck up in an almost comical way atop her head. She cradled a stuffed clank doll--a princess with oversized black boots with spikes on the soles--to her chest as she lay curled in bed. Simon Voltaire clenched his fist. A damned Heterodyne heir was in his very sanctuary. She was in his city. There was no end of the potential trouble she could cause. Moreover, tests he had conducted on her blood confirmed that she had Mongfish ancestry. There was a kettle of _poisson_ that he did not want to deal with at all.  
  
Bah. It was simple enough. She was either William or Barry's daughter. Well then, she had inherited the time left on their accounts. All he was obliged to do was wait seventy-two hours. Then he could expel her from his city without any further obligation.  
  
The girl curled up in agony as she clutched her temples.  
  
She cried.  
  
She was only a few years younger than Colette.  
  
_Merde._  
  
The girl scrambled back into a corner of the improvised cell. A link brought up her elevated heartbeat and increase in respiration. Ordinarily, the Master of Paris had little problem looming ominously over an annoying problem. Terrifying a little girl--even a Heterodyne--was rather _gauche_. A man who had been a father so many times should do better. Simon Voltaire clumsily sat down. The misshappen body beneath his green robes did not respond as well as it did in decades past. Too many additions. Too many surgeries. Still, he was able to affect a courtly bow worthy of one who had once been Andronicus' court. With infinite care, he took the hand of the clank-doll. A faint smile flickered over the girl's face as he kissed the back of its hand.  
  
" _Madmoiselle_ ," Simon said, forcing his vocal implants to ease back on the bass, "to whom do I have the pleasure of meeting."  
  
"This is Princess Stompyboots," the girl said.  
  
"And may I ask the name of her lady in waiting?" Simon continued.  
  
"I'm Agatha," the girl replied.  
  
"A pretty name. In French, it would be 'Agathe'," Simon said. "Do you have a last name?"  
  
"No--ah, non?" the girl said. "My uncle's name was Barry. We changed our last names a lot."  
  
"Mmmm." Simon focused on the locket at her throat. The implant in one eye socket irised open. "What an interesting piece of jewelry."  
  
"Uncle Barry gave it to me when I was five." The girl opened it, revealing the portraits within. "He said my mother and father would protect me as long as I wore it."  
  
"I'm sure they will," Simon said, as his mind raced at the implications at what he had seen beneath the casing.  
  
"That's just a metaphor that I have to wait for an explanation when I have a sufficiently advanced education to understand the reason."  
  
Simon Voltaire raised his eyebrows in a way that always amused his Colette.  
  
The girl giggled.  
  
"Did my uncle bring me here to live with you?"  
  
" ** _Never._** "  
  
Ah. Back to terrifying again.  
  
"That would...not be appropriate," Simon said to the cowering child. "I am an old man. You would be very bored staying with me."  
  
"My uncle Barry can't take care of me any more," the girl said.  
  
"I regret to say that he passed on," Simon said. "Do you understand what that means?"  
  
"Yeah. He can't be zapped back." The girl's lower lip wobbled. Tears dripped down her cheeks. "Am I going to be sent away again?"  
  
Seventy two hours. Then she could be gotten rid of.  
  
Simon Voltaire closed his eyes.  
  
"No. There are homes for young girls like you and their princesses in my city. As long as you keep my peace, you will be under my protection."  
  
A beatific smile broke out on her features.  
  
Simon Voltaire looked down, astonished, at the last sight he ever expected to see: a Heterodyne hugging him.  
  
Trouble.  
  
He just knew it.


	2. Adieu, oncle

It was so big.  
  
Agatha pressed her face to the glass. She didn't care if she was leaving handprints on the Awful Tower. She could see _everything._ The villages and little towns she had lived in with Uncle Barry could have been swallowed up all at once in just one of the _arrondisements_ of the city. The streets were thronged with vehicles of every description instead of wooden-wheeled carts. Hundreds--no, thousands--no, billions of people walked on the broad boulevards and twisty back streets. They weren't ignorant peasants, either. These were smart people!  
  
Over there must be the Institute of the Extraordinary. Uncle Barry had talked about the great university which had risen from the Sorbonne in Andronicus Valois' reign. He had said that she might attend some time after she got over her little problem. Agatha rubbed her head, wincing as if expecting the white-hot pain to strike her just for thinking about it. The Master would help her with that. Sure, he was grumpy and pretty scary. And sometimes she thought he hated her. But he was the great Master of Paris! He was giving her a home. She was going to a proper school. Surely he could stop the headaches.  
  
Then, maybe she might hear the music again.  
  
And she might make Uncle Barry proud.  
  
Agatha stared at the urn beside her. The Master had brought it in an hour ago so she could say goodbye. Agatha frowned. She didn't know what to do. This wasn't her Uncle Barry. Her uncle Barry had been a big man whose arms seemed as if she could lie in for the rest of time. He made toys for the peasant children and fixed the things their parents brought him. He was funny and smart and a little sad all the time. What was in the urn was dirt. It wasn't him. Uncle Barry had died bringing her here. It wasn't right. _It wasn''t right. She could--could try to reconstitute the remains and use them as a template and bring him back so that they could live together and she would be safe and not feel so small and **alone**_ \--  
  
OW.  
  
Ow.  
  
A huge hand squeezed her shoulder. Agatha rubbed the tears from her eyes. She had to remember her manners. Standing up, she curtsied to the Master. That's what you did, yes? Or was that only to kings and queens? Agatha peered up at him. She had to look way up to do that! He was so huge. Huger than Uncle Barry, even Agatha had never seen a construct who wasn't skulking in the shadows. The peasants really hated constructs. Several times, she had seen them being run off with pitchforks and torches. That was usually when Uncle Barry moved them away again to a new place. Agatha studied the strange implants she could see on the outside. She wondered what was under his green robes.  
  
"It is time to say farewell," the Master rumbled.  
  
"Am I going to be able to visit him?" Agatha asked, hugging the urn close.  
  
"I have arranged for him to be interred in the crypts," the Master said.  
  
"Oh." Agatha mentally consulted the map of Paris that she had been given. "That is the Basilica of the...Sacre Coeur? Did I get that right?"  
  
"Yes," the Master said. "It was raised in honor of the end of the Other's attacks. It is appropriate that your uncle be buried there. He will be placed next to the tomb of Saint Teodora."  
  
"That's the mother of the Heterodyne Boys," Agatha said. She had heard people praying to her when a Spark was on the rampage nearby.  
  
"Your uncle was a great admirer of hers," the Master said. "He also had a small garret in the _commune_ of Montmartre where he would stay when he was in my city. It is yours now."  
  
"I thought I was to be sent to an orphanage," Agatha said.  
  
"I believe you need a place of your own, ma petite," the Master said.  
  
"Is it nice?" Agatha stared out at the hill with the grand church crowning it.  
  
"Ah, would that I could walk more often there." The Master sighed. "Such art and life is born there. Would that I could leave the Tower more often."  
  
"You can stay with me, Master," Agatha said. "You can visit any time you wish."  
  
"I do not think we will see much of each other again," the Master said. "I am far too weighed down with matters to have tea with one girl."  
  
Oh.  
  
Of course.  
  
She was just stupid--  
  
"Master, what am I to call myself?"  
  
"Agathe, of course. As are you now of Paris." The Master paused. "For a last name. Hmmmm. Yes. 'Pandoré'."  
  
Agathe Pandoré.  
  
That was who she was now.  
  
Agathe kissed the urn gently before the Master conducted her to an elevator. Sweaty hands clutched a carpet back containing the things a little girl would need. She wiped one against the green pinafore that had replaced the ripped dress she had been in when she arrived. She adjusted the matching beret with gold trim atop her head. Nervously, she fidgeted with the locket at her throat. The Master had sealed it shut. He said it would not be good for others to see the portraits inside. That was alright. Agatha-- _Agathe_ knew they were inside.  
  
The elevator stopped with a sharp thump. Agatha found herself at the northwest leg of the Awful Tower. No-one seemed to notice a small girl stepping out of the Master's domain. Waiting in the square surrounding the tower was a centaur-drawn cab. In the hands of the centaur in the traces was a card with her name on it. Her new name. Agathe blinked. Red fire, was that fast. Agathe felt in a pocket of the pinafore. The Master had even given her several francs for the fare.  
  
Agathe squared her shoulders.  
  
It was time to go home.


	3. Montmartre

Such work as this he had seen rarely since his old master had disappeared. The intricacy of the mechanism floating above the projector would have impressed Van Rijn himself. Even more so, if the workmanship of the components were anything to go by. The cogs and springs were those from a toymaker's chest than the product of a Spark's lab. Simon had never thought the Heterodyne Boys particularly gifted men. Brave, yes. Clever, yes, He was even willing to say heroic. But they had never reached the heights of a true savant. Barry Heterodyne had finally broken through three years ago. Driven by desperation, he had crafted a masterpiece within the girl's locket.  
  
Simon Voltaire did not consider himself a particularly good man. Perhaps once he had been, in the idealistic days when a great king had seemed destined to rule Europa with enlightenment and charm. Now he did what he had to do to keep his beloved city safe. So he allowed himself some otherwise despicable _schadenfreude_ over the fact that Barry Heterodyne's greatest creation was crippling his niece. The irony of a Heterodyne forced to shackle a fellow Heterodyne's Spark was too delicious in light of the crimes of the house. The headaches were the least of it. The locket constantly reacted to the subvocal heterodyning harmonics of the girl. When not disrupting her concentration with pain, it emanated psychoacoustics that dampened any emotions into a depressing fog.  
  
Why, he might endeavor to revive Barry Heterodyne from the ash he had been reduced just to thank him for this wonderful gift. The only Heterodyne heir in existence was now trapped in Paris. He need not create an elaborate prison to contain her. All he must do was adjust the locket every so often to compensate for the growth of her Spark. The locket itself was securely fastened about her neck. He had helpfully replaced the frail chain with a collar of the strongest alloy he knew. The girl would spend her life a mediocrity denied the potential of the gift within her mind. For truly she had a monstrous--a word he did not use lightly when concerning Heterodynes--genius that he had never encountered before. Breakthroughs when in one's early teens were the sign of a dangerously powerful prodigy. Few survived them. The girl had been wearing it since she was five to prevent a breakthrough always on the cusp of exploding.  
  
What a waste.  
  
Simon slapped himself. There was that damned sentimentality rearing its insidious head once again. The girl was not a prodigy. She was a threat to all that he had built. Best he should arrange an accident. They happened. He did not even have to send an assassin. An errant curbstone _here_ or a malfunctioning lamp-post _there_ could rid the city of the girl. Arranging a bit of student street drama as a cover was not much harder. Some who sought the sanctuary of Paris were too inconvenient to have about. As in everything, Paris came first. Or else he might end the Heterodyne bloodline forever by arranging sterilization when she came in for an examination. He had done worse for less cause.  
  
Still. Fingers drummed on the table bearing the projector. It was a pity that such raw talent would go to waste. What might be possible if it could be guided? What art might arise if it could be cultivated?  
  
What a marvelous experiment.  
  
++++  
  
"Here we are, madmoiselle," Monsiuer Larousse said, his German studied but understandable.  
  
"My u--my father stayed here?" Agathe asked. "Did you meet him?"  
  
"No, he communicated with me through letters and bank drafts," the lawyer said. "He paid generously for a long-term lease. The last payment was before the unpleasantness with the Other. There are still five years to go until the lease ends."  
  
"I guess I can wash dishes at the cafe downstairs when that happens," Agathe said.  
  
"I think there is more to you than that," Monsieur Larousse said. "Your papa did not leave any estate we can find yet. But we of Paris leave no child destitute. You shall be provided with a monthly stipend for food and other needs. You shall attend our schools, the finest in the world. I have volunteered to manage your affairs for a modest fee."  
  
"Merci, monsieur," Agathe said. "I think I would be like to be alone, now."  
  
"Are you sure?" Monsieur Larousse said. "I will stay if being alone scares you."  
  
"I might as well get used to it," Agathe said. "I'm all that is left of my family. Alone is what I am."

+++++

So this was where she lived for now.  
  
Agathe didn't really think she would stay here for long. She never did. Still, it was home for now. The garret was in the attic of a house high up amid the twisty streets near the top of Montrmartre. The walls were really the sharply sloping roof. The heavy, worn furniture filled most of the space of what was not much larger than some of the huts she had lived in during the worst times. In one corner was a sink with a chipped mirror above it. Beside it was an actual water closet. Hung on a nail was a galvanized steel tub that was meant for double duty as a laundry tub and bath.   
  
Agathe opened the drawers of the chest of drawers near her bed. Neatly folded into them were enough clothing--mostly green, like the Master's robes--to last her for a week. In another corner was another luxury like the sink and water-closet:: an icebox with a chunk of fresh ice in the top compartment. Someone had put in milk and fruit and other things. There was even a small gas-stove just big enough for a kettle or skillet. Agathe worried her lower lip. Monsieur Larousse had said her weekly allowance would let her eat at the cafe for lunch or dinner. But it wasn't enough for every day. She would have to do her own cooking. Not to mention her own cleaning. A woman from downstairs would come in every week. But if the inspectors found that Agathe had not been helping out in between, she would lose the extra money meant for treats and things. Ugh. Chores.  
  
Next to the dormer window was a neat little workbench with drawers underneath. Uncle Barry must have worked there in the best light. Hesitantly, she opened one drawer. Within it were all sorts of clever tools made by her uncle's hand. She could recognize how he forged them, as he often had to when they had to suddenly move. Agathe opened each drawer in turn. So many! So many types even she didn't recognize! They were her tools now. Monsieur Larousse had said her "father" had left no inheritance. He was wrong. Agathe's fingers itched to pick them up and _do things_.  
  
She closed them shut instead.  
  
The bed was too big. She had often slept in her uncle's bed when the headaches were too bad. Without him, there was so much space she couldn't feel comfortable. Hmmmph. Agathe emptied the bottom drawer. A folded sheet and a pillow made a much better bed. She lay down in it, drawing a blanket over her. Much better! She could sleep here. And uncle Barry would sleep in the big bed. Agathe screwed shut her eyes. No. She wasn't going to be a weepy baby. She was going to be grown-up and responsible. She was going to cook and clean and take care of herself. She was going to learn French. She was going to-- Agathe had no idea what she was supposed to do. What was there, really, for a little crippled girl all alone?  
  
Claws scratched at glass. Agathe popped her head up. Outside, a black cat with ragged ears cocked its head. Agathe quickly laid out a bowl with a little milk in it. The cat brushed up against her shins as it regally strode over to the gift. Agathe absently scritched its behind its ears as it lapped up the treat. The window actually had a balcony outside. It was really a narrow ledge with an iron railing around it. She hopped up to see outside. Her mouth made an O of delight at the view. She could see almost as much as Paris as from the Awful Tower. There was the Arc de Triomphe. There was the Seine. There was all of Paris below her.   
  
The cat mrewed curiously as the girl dashed out of the door and down the twisting staircase into the winding street into the great world she was in.  
  
Then it tipped over the milk bottle left on the floor with a crash of shattering glass.  
  
++++  
  
In his steam-powered legs, the artist could walk the streets of Montmartre as tall as any _flaneur._ He had set them aside while he sketched in the Place du Tetre. He usually preferred painting the more decadent scenes of lower Montmartre and Pigalle amid the cabarets. Every so often he would paint _en plein air._ He sighed in contentment. Was this not the life? He had a glass of absinthe at hand, paper nearby, and a fine pen to make caricatures that might become more in his studio at the easel. He sipped a bit of the green fairy as he waited for inspiration to come.  
  
The bourgeois man and the _fille de joie_ having a _tete a tete_ before no doubt retiring to more intimate surroundings? Bah, he had done that enough times. The two working men arguing politics across the way? A bit more interesting. What he looked for was life. There had to be-- Yes! There! Swiftly, his pen swept across the paper as the little girl ran into the plaza. Oh my, she must be new to Paris. There was nothing like a _vierge_ in the throes of her first seduction of this beguiling city.  
  
The girl convulsed. The artist paused as she cradled her head in her hands while leaning against one of the plane trees around the edge of the square. Not bothering to don his legs, he waddled over to the crying girl as a crowd gathered. He plucked an elegantly-folded handkercheif tucked into his front pocket. The girl blew her nose lustily into the pocket square. Bright green eyes behind comically-large glasses stared at him as he handed his sketch to her.  
  
"For you, madmoiselle," the artist said.   
  
"Merci," the girl said. She fumbled with a small phrasebook taken from a pocket. "Ah--I--my french not good--"  
  
"I speak Romanian," he said. "I spent some years in Mechanicsburg as a youth. Lovely landscapes and even lovelier women."  
  
"This is very good," the girl replied. "I look so happy."  
  
"A mere chicken scratching," the artist said dismissively. "Are you alright?"  
  
"I get these headaches when I get excited," the girl said.  
  
"Pain makes the pleasure all the sweeter," he said, pointing to his legs. "I am short. Yet, through art, I am as a giant."  
  
"Can I have this?" the girl asked shyly.  
  
"But of course!" The artist extended his hand. "Now, madmoiselle, this is truly your first time in Montmartre. Let me escort you to see all its many wonders."  
  
"Thank you." The girl curtsied. "I--je m'appelle Agathe. Is that correct?"  
  
"Oui." He tipped his bowler hat. "I am Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Now, let us see about some gelato for a fine young lady."

 


	4. Jeune Ecole

Agathe mechanically ate her oatmeal without tasting it at all. For once, her head wasn't on fire. It was her entire world that felt like spun glass. It was not Herr Lautrec's fault at all. He had been very kind to her. The gelato had been delicious. The green fairy drink he had let her have a tiny sip had tasted like liquorice and spices. She might have snuck a few more sips while he wasn't looking s as he had talked with his friend in the _Lapin Argile._ Then she might have drunk a little from a tall glass left on a table with something bubbly that made her nose tickle. Then she had asked for a _café_ to be like all the other clever people in the cabaret. After that the worldhadgonereallyfast.  
The child-wagon had plucked her off the windmill before it was seriously on fire.  
  
By some miracle, the oatmeal stayed down in her stomach instead of joining the gelato in the water closet. Agathe walked very slowly so as not to dislodge the sack of chipped ice balanced atop her head. Fumbling with the faucet, she screwed on the rubber hose. She only twisted the hot water tap a bit for a little warmth in her bathwater. One had to feed coins into the meter attached to the hot water heater in the corner if you used more than a few liters in a day. Even lukewarm water was amazing when one had to boil kettles on the fire for a bath when she had been living with Uncle Barry.   
  
She soaked in the bath, scrubbing herself with soap and bathbrush, until her skin was quite pruned up. Facing the bright sun outside with its terrible stabbing rays of doom didn't sound fun right now. Agathe didn't have any place to be, really. She couldn't go to school until her French was better. There was supposed to be a tutor who would visit her for regular lessons. They hadn't said she had to stay in the flat or in Montmartre. She didn't feel brave enough to head out into the city beyond by herself. Uncle Barry wasn't about to be her guide. Monsieur Toulouse-Lautrec had other things to do than babysit a little girl.  
  
Agathe decided to nap until there was enough shade outside to read without boiling her eyeballs. The Master had given her a few books. Maybe she could spend some time with _Tales of the Old Masters of Mechanicsburg_. The only Heterodynes she had ever heard about were the Boys. She wondered what sort of heroism their ancestors got up to. Wrapping herself in a towel, she grabbed the washtub to empty it in the sink. Her arms strained to no avail. What? Uncle Barry had always been able to do this with no problem! Then Agathe did some calculations about the mass of such a volume of water. Then she did some calculations of how many times she would need to use the ewer on the nightstand to empty it. Ooops.  
  
"Hey, they didn't tell me you were so beautiful!"  
  
Agathe whipped around.  
  
A beaming face stared at her from the window while she was _wearing nothing but a towel._  
  
"AAAAAAARGGHHHHHH!"  
  
++++  
  
Agathe slapped the wrench in the palm of one hand. She might be only eight. But even she knew that sometimes you had to resort with percussive maintenance against a balky mechanism. Or else beat some sense into an intruder. Said intruder twitched at the sound of metal meeting flesh. It probably reminded him of the wrench hitting upside the forehead. Agathe massaged one temple She hoped his head ached. Hers did after her panic and anger had brought on a mild headache on top of the reminder that alcohol wasn't her friend.  
  
The vile peeper who had dared invade her room was a boy her age. He had the dark skin common in native Parisians. Agathe had heard somewhere that they were descended from a Moorish tribe whose loyalty had been won by Andronicus Valois. The Master of Paris had been among their number. He was a little taller than her, and much stronger than her. Biceps bulged when he lifted the nearly-full washtub up to drain it into the water closet. He was dressed in a grey-purple open necked shirt and matching breeches, with a pair of dark blue boots. Goggles rested on his brow. His hair was a wind-ruffled shock of black.  
  
"Well, that's taken care of," the boy said in Alsatian German. "If you're going to fill it up all the way, you should make some kind of pump to drain it off."  
  
"Thank you for your advice." Agathe pointed the wrench at the open window. "Now get out!"  
  
"I can't leave just yet," the boy protested.  
  
"Yes you can." Agathe rolled up one shirt sleeve. "Let me show you the way along with Ultima Regio."  
  
"Wait! I'm Jiminez Hoffman, your tutor!" the boy said. "I volunteered to get you up to speed with French."  
  
"By spying me in my bath?" Agathe sniffed. "I'll ask for another one."  
  
"Please, don't send me away!" Jiminez begged on his knees.  
  
"Why shouldn't I?"  
  
"Because it's an extra ten credits for my extracurriculars," Jiminez admitted. "I really need that for my grade-point average."  
  
"Hmmmph. I guess they sent the trouble kid to take care of the freak," Agathe muttered.  
  
"Freak?"  
  
"I get headaches whenever I try to be smart," Agathe admitted.   
  
"Oh, yeah, those." Jiminez shrugged. "It'll be taken care of. There's hundreds of doctors in Paris who can cure that."  
  
"You think so?" Agathe asked.  
  
"Hey, this is Paris! Anything's possible." Jiminez smacked her on the shoulder. "Hey, it's a great day out there. We can have a first lesson in the Jardin de Luxembourg."  
  
"Okay. Just no funny business," Agathe said, waving a finger in warning.   
  
"Great." Jiminez drew her to the window.  
  
"Ah, aren't people supposed to use the door and the stairs."  
  
"Not if you want to be a real Parisian kid!" He drew a grappling-hook pistol from a holster on his belt. "Time for both a language lesson and a first-time roof run!"


	5. Freerunning

**_The suppression mechanisms within the girl's locket were complex. The methods by which her Spark was kept just on the cusp of breakthrough were crude. No. That was a disservice to the late Barry Heterodyne. The emotional-dampening effects of the locket were subtle enough that the girl did not spend every waking hour with crippling migraines. The word he should be using was "direct". Children learned by clear and obvious lessons. A hot pot handle burned. Running too quickly resulted in skinned knees. In the girl's case, trying to break through meant the bars of the cage about her Spark shocked her into safety._**  
  
**_Barry Heterodyne had not access to resources for a more sophisticated approach. Even had his castle not been cripplied, Simon doubted very much the man would have entrusted control of the locket to that satanic piece of architecture. Simon had rather more options that a Spark on the run with a young child. He studied the readings from sensors embedded into the collar he had added to the locket. The readings from the locket and her brain were most illuminating. The time she had spent in the promising Monsieur Toulouse-Lautrec's company had exposed her to a fair bit of art and music. Her mind had slipped free of the locket's grasp to think more clearly._**  
  
**_The true fire of art would be denied her as long as her emotions were shackled. Quite the conundrum, there. Breakthrough was related to passion. Allowing her emotions free reign meant that, sooner or later, her Spark would manifest. That is, if one relied only on the limited abilities of the locket. Simon had already directed the city to dedicate a small portion of its systems to the project. Resources of several cognitive engines scattered among the networks would monitor both the girl's environment and her Spark. The migraines would be a last resort. Distraction could serve as well as agony. Induced absence seizures could avoid breakthrough. All it would take was the addition of modulation harmonics added to the locket's pulses. Easily done with the mechanisms within the collar._**  
  
**_Hmmmm. There was a sudden spike in respiration and heartbeat consistent with terror._**  
  
Simon cross-referenced the locator beacon in the collar with surveillance feeds in the area.  
  
_**Ah.**_  
  
+++++  
  
Agathe had discovered three things about Jiminez Hoffman.  
  
One: he was ten years old, rather than eight.  
  
Two: he really was strong for a boy his age.  
  
Three: he had no sense of danger.  
  
Agathe`s idea of danger was big enough for them both. She really wished she could close her eyes. They had frozen open several minutes into what her lunatic tutor called a _parkour_ run. Their journey across the rooftops of Paris was like a series of very very scary postcards flashing across her mind. There was when she had been dragged screaming down Montmartre hill atop the roofs. There was when he had grabbed a windmill blade for something called "mad air". He had zipped along wires strung between buildings on a pulley with a handgrip. To cross the Seine, he had latched onto a passing dirigible taxi with the grapnel gun.  
  
Sparks flew from the steel in his boot-soles as he slid sideways across a roof ridge. He was pointing out the sights. That was very impressive, as she had her arms locked around his neck tight enough to strangle an elephant. Agathe wasn't paying attention much to his conversation because red fire red fire they were going to die. Only somehow they didn't. A leap to the top of a lamp post ended in a dizzying spin down to the street. They had stopped. One trembling shoe pressed a toe against the sidewalk. She was on the ground again.  
  
"Are you okay?" Jiminez asked.  
  
"I will be when I hang you with your own intestines." Agathe hugged the ground. "Oh sweet mother earth, I shall never leave you again."  
  
"Ha! You're funny." Jiminez yanked her to her feet. "That was a slow run. Wait until we do it at speed at night."  
  
" **Never**."  
  
"Oh, you're really angry." Jiminez rubbed the back of his head. "I overdid it, didn't I?"  
  
"Maybe a little," Agathe snapped back. "We stay at street level from now on."  
  
"Alright," Jiminez said. He grinned. "But I bet I can make a _traceuse_ out of you. It's way more fun when you're the one roof-running."  
  
She couldn't kill him now. There were too many witnesses. Although the Master of Paris would understand that crushing his skull from behind was the only way she could be safe. Maybe poison? Agathe plotted murder in her heart as she followed Jiminez through the streets. After a while, she began to take note of her surroundings. The city around her was different than Montmartre. From the many cafés came conversations in every tongue of Europa. Agathe had thought the artists of Montmartre were colourful. Some of the people in wandering about were downright strange. They were students, she realized. The Institute of the Extraordinary must be around here, along with the other universities of the Sorbonne. Maybe they could peek in on the way home. The chances of her ever attending were even worse than the idea she'd take up dancing across the rooftops.  
  
Agathe gasped when she saw the trees rise up before her. On the other side of the _rue_ was a wall with a wrought-iron gate set into it. The heat rising up from the pavement was replaced by cool shade when they slipped through the gate. A graveled path bordered by stands of trees on either side stretched into the distance. There was none of the menace Agathe had known when she and her uncle had traveled through the Wastelands. This was so peaceful. Oh! It was a park. She had heard of those.  
  
Agathe clapped her hands when they reached the end of the grove. Stretching out beyond her was a great expanse of green lawn. All over them in little groups were people sitting on chairs with easels, or picnicking with wicker hampers upon colourful blankers. In the center of it was a fountain with its own little lake. She could see children sailing steam-powered toy ships in the basin. Picking up her skirts, she ran towards the fountain. It was so beautiful! She forgave Jiminez for everything. Well, not the windmill. She would have to find a suitable punishment for--  
  
Agathe blinked.  
  
Had she tripped?  
  
"--okay, she told me she has these headaches...uh, although she didn't say anything about seizures--"  
  
Jiminez was somewhere around.  
  
A patrician, strong face framed by red hair the shade of claret hovered above her.  
  
"Just rest," the boy said in perfect Romanian.  
  
"Perhaps your Heterodyne Girl just fell into your lap, Tweedle."  
  
"Seffie!"


	6. Presented At Court

Agathe wondered where she had seen him before. The older boy who had summoned a doctor in with a snap of his fingers was strangely familiar. Agathe pondered the mystery rather than dwell on thoughts of _seizures_. Pain was something she could suffer through. She was still herself when the headaches hit. Whatever had happened to her had stolen her away. She had laid on the grass all still like Princess Stompyboots discarded on her bed. Or perhaps it had been more like she imagined Uncle Barry had been like on the slab before they had given him to the crematorium.

  
So she concentrated on their host while the doctor took her pulse and shone a light in her eyes. She barely listened to the diagnosis of stress and grief taking their toll. She leaned back against Jiminez as she worked out the problem. His hands on her shoulder would keep her upright if she flopped over with _lifeless button eyes like a dead thing_. A handkerchief appeared before her. Agathe hesitated. It was rather disgusting with dried sweat and other secretions. But she honked her nose in kerchief even if it smelled of old engine grease mixed with yuck. Jiminez grinned at her as he tucked it into a back pocket. She decided to stay his execution for now.

If her took her on another roof run, of course, all bets were off.

Agathe frowned. Why was she thinking of coins? There was something in the way her host posed in profile. He was most certainly a noble. The picnic blanket spread on the grass was a great expanse of white and gold with a fleur-de-lys embroidered in the center; it was set with fine cutlery and china of the sort she had only imagined might exist in a castle, Everyone in the party was dressed so fancily. Her host lounged at the head of them all next to a girl with wine-red hair and sapphire eyes to match the blue-white silk of her dress. He was so regal.

"Aha!" Agathe leaped up. "Of course. He's the heir to the Storm Throne out among his people."

She was suddenly aware that everyone was staring at her in shocked silence.

"Um." Agathe flushed beet-red. "I'm sorry, it seemed so obvious--"

"Well spotted." The boy jumped to his feet with easy grace. "Be welcome to the court of Martellus von Blitzengaard, my young lady who recognizes royalty when she sees it."

"Oh, now I see it," Jiminez said. "Exactly like on the coins from the old days. My brother Aldin has a collection."

"The constipated expression is distinctive," Agathe said.

"That is actually an air of authority and dignity." A muscle in Martellus's cheek twitched.

"No, she's right," the girl said. "You do look like you have Grandmére's cane shoved--"

"Seffie!" Martellus snapped.

"Well, you do, Tweedle," Seffie said, smirking.

"Do you have any sisters?" Martellus asked Jiminez.

"No, only Aldin."

"Count yourself blessed by God." Martellus sighed dramatically. He chuckled when he glanced at Agathe. "Now I see. _Madmoiselle_ is not your sister. You are two young lovers out for a walk."

"He is not my boyfriend," Agathe replied hotly. "He's a pervert who peeps on girls when they are coming out of the bath."

"I said I was sorry!"

"Oho, a hot-blooded young lad." Martellus clapped Jiminez on the back. "So you would not mind if I pursued this fine lady's hand, eh?"

"Don't get her hopes up," Seffie chided. "You are promised to the Heterodyne Girl. As you say and say and say and say."

"Alas, so I am." Martellus took Agathe's hand. "So I shall have to pine away in memory of what could have been between us."

"I'm only eight." Agathe felt very strange when he kissed the back of her hand. "I think I am a little young for this, even in Paris."

"Their heir to Andronicus Valois recognizes a beauty no matter her age." A pasteboard card with a signature in a fine hand appeared in his fingers. "My card. Present it at any establishment of quality to receive the attention you deserve."

"Thank you," Agathe said. She curtsied. "You really are a king."

"I--" Martellus paused. "You think so? Ah, of course you do."

"Only a true king would care for his subjects this way," She jumped up to hug him. "I hope you find your Heterodyne Girl."

"Rolland!" Martellus shouted. "Pack a hamper and a meal for _madmoiselle_ and her escort."

Agathe could not stop rubbing where he had kissed her. Jiminez staggered behind her carrying a massive hamper basket full to the brim with food. Amazing. She had met the Master of Paris and the heir to the Storm King in the same month. Paris truly was a place where miracles happened. Everyone knew the tale of the Storm King and the Heterodyne Girl. One day, the Storm King would return to bring peace and enlightenment to a war-torn Europa. He would marry a daughter of the Heterodynes who would be Andronicus' lost love Euphrosynia. She could see it so clearly. Martellus would ride up on his charger bearing clever tools to help her escape the dire prison of Ogglespoon. The orchestral score would surge as he held her in his arms while the foul Thinkomancer died screaming in the flames. Just like in the Heterodyne Boy shows, Martellus' lips would descend down to hers--

Er.

The day had become quite warm, all of a sudden.

Martellus had not gifted them a meal. What was in the hamper could only be called a repast. Any thought of lessons was forgotten while the two of them gorged on the contents of the wicker basket. There were tortes and quiches and cold meats and baguettes. She had not eaten so well even in her stay in the Awful Tower. She and Jiminez flopped down on their backs under a tree with aching bellies. They traded back and forth a bottle of sweet cordial that sent their brains spinning. I am in the most beautiful park I have ever seen, Agathe thought. I am in the most wonderful city in the world. It will be alright. The Master of Paris would never allow me out of sight if he suspected I might have seizures. It was only the one time.

Jminez' arm slipped beneath her neck. Agathe settled upon it as a pillow. He was not her boyfriend. But, he was a boy who could be her friend. She grinned up as she stared through the branches swaying above them She had a friend. She never had friends. Jim had not been disgusted she was broken or strange. He had stuck around even after she had embarrassed herself before the most noble people in Paris. Also, he was really comfortable to lie on. That was very important in a friendship.

"So, should we start the lesson?" Agathe asked sleepily.

"Ooops," Jiminez said.

"What do you mean,'oops'?" Agathe frowned.

"I forgot the books at home." Jiminez sheepishly rubbed his hair. "I was so excited that I could fulfill my extra-curriculars that I left the study packet behind."

"You dragged me screaming across the rooftops of Paris," Agathe said. "And now we can't even have my first French lesson?"

"Yeah. Funny, eh?"

"Let me see where we left the butterknife," Agathe said, sitting up to sift through the dirty cutlery. "Oh, there it is! Now I can remove your spleen and feed it to you."

"The steak knife would be sharper," Jiminez pointed out.

" _I want it to be slow_."

++++

Simon chuckled darkly to himself. This was going to be even more entertaining than he had anticipated. He played back the recording from the various city feeds in the Luxembourg Gardens of his experiment chatting with Martellus von Blitzengaard. The sheer irony of it all was enough to supply young Klaus with steel for the next fifty years of war-machine production. Of course, the girl would just happen to land up practically landing in the lap of one of the Valois heirs. The odd turns of fate that transformed the lives of Sparks into high drama had pushed his charge into the sphere of her house's greatest enemies.

Terebithia was going to murder him with one of her more entertaining poisons when she found out.

The Master of Paris reviewed the results of the first application of the altered locket response. It was a trifle too harsh for his tastes. It would not do for Agathe to keel over every time she experienced strong emotion. He might as well toss her out of Paris for all the good it might do. No, there had to be a way of disrupting a breakthrough while allowing her to develop her talents within a manageable spectrum. Her education could be slanted towards less technical fields until he had found a solution.

Behind him, the Jaeger woman wept over the autopsy photographs of Barry Heterodyne. Jenka had come in her human guise as an eccentric noblewoman. Her massive bear nuzzled her in comfort as the grey-skinned monster of the Heterodynes mourned one of her Masters. Simon permitted himself a vicious grin of triumph at one of Euphrosynia Heterodyne's conspirators had her heart shattered. The fact that the Heterodyne heir she sought was hidden in plain sight a few kilometers away was truly a glorious thing in a life that seemed to grow heavier each year.

"Master Barry expressed his wish to be interred beside his mother," Simon said, managing to school his expression into solemn regret.

"Yez, he neffer liked de idea ov de kestle crypts," Jenka said. "Ve vill respect de Master's wishes."

"Before he died, he revealed he was pursued by agents of the Other," Simon said. "'Geisterdammen', he called them. White ladies riding giant spiders."

"Ve heff seen deze about." Jenka's snarl was just as frightening as before Andronicus had ripped out her fangs. "Ve vill hunt dem down, effery vun. Dey vill pay for vot de Odder has done to the Masters."

"If you could discreetly inform Baron Wulfenbach, it would be appreciated," Simon said. "I do not wish to involve myself in these matters beyond what is necessary to defend Paris."

"Hy vill let de generals know." Jenka inclined her head. "Ve heff ever been enemies. But in dis, ve agree. De white ladies will pay. And den dey vill tell us vere dey took de child."

"Child?" Simon asked, oh so very casually.

"Ho yez, I schmelt it vile tracking Master Barry." Jenka tapped her nose. "Dere vas a child ov Heterodyne blood in de bedding along his trail. De child must heff been taken before he came here."

Within, Simon Voltaire cursed in Lower Sumerian.


	7. Habitant

Jenka tipped her hat to the old wizard in his tower. He had done his work well in hiding the boy. Not that she had expected to find the child after following Master Barry's week-old trail. If Master Barry had placed the boy in the Master's care, then that boy might not even be in Paris at all. It would be easier to hide his Spark when he finally broke through in the chaos of the City of Lightning. But Voltaire might have squirreled away the boy among any number of families noble or common. Paris had a long reach among the northern French duchies and in Provence.

  
Of course, the fiction between them was that the Geisterdammen had the boy. Voltaire might even have believed it. Her stay through the summer had been to renew Mechanicsburg's ties with those in the city who were willing to deal with the Heterodynes. There were a few like the underground realms who defied the Master's control. Jenka stroked the lovely set of gloves she had been gifted. They were a fine example of molecraftship. The representtives of the Blood Circle had assured their counterparts in the Black Market that the recent Wulfenbach "takeover" would not disrupt business.

Still, even official diplomatic business was a thin cover for the search. Two months of keeping ears and nose primed had gained her nothing. The Master had suggested through a few accidents that it might be time for the eccentric Lady Jenka Olensky to take herself back to the Carpathians. It was her last day here before she boarded an airship headed for home. So she had finally come to pay her respects to her fallen Master. She could not enter Sacre-Coeur. Both the Church and Master William had forbidden anyone from Mechanicsburg to set foot in the basilica where the Boys' mother was interred.

Now it was a matter for the general.

Jenka suddenly jerked upright.

That sound.

That _hum_.

Her ears swiveled about to catch that ever-so-brief bit of humming that had drifted through the hubbub of the Place. Where? Frustrated, Jenka left clawmarks in her table as she searched for the source. Nothing. There no children here save a little strawberry-blonde girl across the way in the square itself with an accordion in hand. She stared blankly for a moment before rousing herself to continue practicing on the squeeze box. Jenka inhaled deeply. Nothing. Not a whiff of the distinctive scent that every Jaeger knew.

Jenka tossed coins on the table to cover her absinthe and the _pourboire_ ,

It was long past time she left Paris to don armor and riding scarf to join the hunt.

++++'

"Mrew!" Minou proudly offered the rat to Agathe.

"Why thank you, _cherie_." Agathe placed the corpse in a sealed container in the icebox. "I shall dissect it later. Here, have some mince for your trouble."

"You're picking up French pretty quick," Jim said _en francaise_ , lounging on her bed.

"Not that different from Romanian." Agathe shrugged. "Besides, I have a great tutor. When he remembers to bring the study materials."

"That was one time!" Jim rubbed his side. "Any luck with the other stuff?"

"Not really." Agathe glanced sadly at the pile of mathematics and science texts. "I can memorize it pretty well, It is when I get to the advanced exercises that the spells come."

"Hey, better than headaches." Jim whistled when he saw the titles. "No wonder you're blanking out. This is material three or four levels above your year."

"At least it wasn't as bad as that morning in the Jardin," Agatha said.

"It wasn't all bad." Jim fluttered his eyes. "That was where you met your amour."

Jim dodged when she threw the mallet at his head. It was rubber-headed. His skull could take it. Jim snatched it out of the air before cartwheeling off her bed to the window. His laugh was swallowed by the evening dusk as he disappeared across the rooftops. Agathe shut the window with a bit more force than necessary. Imbecile. Martellus von Bliztengaard was not her sweetheart. Agathe brushed dust off the frame of signed portrait of his on her night-table. It had come by post the day after their meeting. It rested on a scrapbook in which she pasted articles clipped from the _journeaux_ which featured him.

It was not at all obsessive to keep abreast of the life of one's king.

Agathe picked up a book about Van Rijn's muses from the bookcase. Jim had knocked it together from waste lumber they had found in alleys. The books on the shelves were secondhand copies that had scribbles from university students in the margins and stains on the covers. Princess Stompyboots served as a book-end on one. The tintype camera she had fixed with Jim's help served as another. She had tried learning to paint from Henri and the others. She simply did not have the gift. But she loved applying Monsieur Lautrec's lessons on light and composition to the snaps she took during her walks through Paris.

There were curtains for the windows she had sewn herself from old tablecloths from a cafe on the Place. There was a green Persian rug only a little bit scuffed on the floor. Henri had gifted it to her after she had modeled for him several times. The plates and cups in the cabinets were chipped. The cutlery had had to be rubbed with steel wool. They all hers that had been bought in the markets from money she had earned from doing errands about the _commune_. Her greatest extravagance was the accordion which she had spent much of her stipend for last month. Marcil the piano player at the _Lapin Argile_ had given her a few lessons. Her garret was too small for an instrument of that size. Nor could she afford one. But the accordion was perfect to practice on until she could play one of the pianos found in almost every cafe or club.

This was her home. The Master had done as he had promised. No-one would ever take her away while she was under his protection. Oh! It was time for her medicine. Agathe swallowed a pill from the case she kept on her at all times. The Master's note had said that it would disguise her scent; the ghost ladies and their spiders could track her down if she did not take it every day. A wave of gratitude washed through her as she looked about the tiny room that was hers. Above her workbench was a small shrine with a votive candle beneath it. In place of the cross was a picture of the Master standing on guard above Paris. Striking a match, she lit the candle in honour of the man who had done so much for one ordinary girl.

She would repay him, she vowed. She would repay him for everything.

 


	8. First Day at Lycée

_Simon watched the recording of the subject for the tenth time. Running along the bottom of the visual feed from the clinic used as a front was her brain activity. The readings as the nurse put her through a round of tests was entirely in line with those he had observed over the summer. The mental acuity tests indicated an amazingly bright girl with an almost photographic memory and swift problem-solving skills. The piano sessions indicated a deep passion aroused by musical along with a strong talent for the instrument. The tuning of the collar allowed her a wider range of emotion before dampening was necessary._  
  
_Then came the advanced technical tests. They ended as he intended: in a series of absence seizures of a few seconds each of duration to interrupt breakthrough. The weekly clinic visits had enabled him to adjust the punishment cycle to reward slow, plodding work without flights of fancy. The current task was to put together a velocipede that had been reduced to a box of parts. No blueprint had been provided to aid her. The subject laid out the parts with almost comical care. She suffered only one blank moment when tempted to alter the sealed internal hub. Two hours later, the sweating girl was presented with a child-sized lady's-frame bicycle she had constructed herself._  
  
**_The anomaly began during the overnight stay meant to provide a detailed analysis of her mind during sleep. The spike in activity started an hour before dawn. The subject rose from her bed with half-lidded eyes flickering in the telltale sign of an intense dreamstate. An atonal hum escaped her lips as she sleepwalked to her new bicycle. The collar delivered increasing seizure stimuli as she fumbled with the bicycle's toolkit. Simon could only watch in amazed horror at the failure of the altered locket to stop her. The casing of the internal hub gearing cracked open as she delved into its internals._**  
  
He dismissed the recording feed. His eyepiece extended into a loupe to examine the fruits of her somnambulism. Of course, he had had it confiscated It had been replaced with a ruined one just as she had awoken. She had been most chagrined that she had destroyed such a part. The negative reinforcement seemed to have worked for now. The collar had not detected another somnambulism episode since that visit. She had not even dared work on her bicycle for several weeks; she had had the young Monsieur Hoffman do any maintenance before plucking up the courage to try herself.  
  
Simon knew better than to believe he had stymied her. He mentally calculated the efficiency of the altered hub had been improved by ten percent. It was not a Spark's work. It was far more than could be expected of a child, no matter how precocious her mechanical gifts. All this had been accomplished under constant monitoring and subtle suppression. Only the return of the migraines would throttle this in its cradle. Or else there were permanent options. A dose of encephalitis in the pills that disguised her scent would end the threat to Paris and Europa that she represented.  
  
Anyone with a modicum of sense would cheer the lobotomisation of a Heterodyne.  
  
By some gremlin in his mechanisms, the loupe twitched up towards the card that had been sent by post. _To the Master of Paris_ had been scrawled on the red and white envelope with Saint Nicolas in a sleigh drawn by ten mimmoths on front. The card within was a simple piece of cardboard with a pocket for a tintype in the middle. Tintype cameras were an old method that had become a novelty several decades ago; internal developing mechanisms in the tourist models could pop out a snapshot on japanned iron in under a minute. The girl had found one somewhere. The picture in black and white was spontaneous, yet almost professionally composed. Agathe stood on the Champs des Merveilles with the Awful Tower in the background. Straddling her bicycle, she waved at the implied observer represented by the camera.  
  
_Today I am nine because of you, Herr Voltaire. Merry Christmas._  
  
Simon tipped back his head, groaning.  
  
Why did she have to make things so difficult?  
  
_+++++_  
  
Amelie's tires hissed on the pavement. Agathe did not fear patches of ice or snow. Though the air had the chill of of January morning, the only snow was above the ground on rooftops and tree branches. Heated roads and automated street cleaners ensured the safety of traffic in his city. She could pedal as hard as she wanted even in the midst of winter. There was always the possibiliy of rough pavement from some Sparky fight in the streets. Amelie could get her through any treacherous parts. Jim had ridden the velocipede down the steps flanking the Montmartre funicular to proof Agathe's work.  
  
The delicious scent of fresh-baked baguette set her stomach rumbling. She had flown out of her garret so quickly this morning that she had skipped breakfast. Agathe rang the bell to alert the baker setting out his wares on a stall on a corner. She flicked her fingers through a series of Parisian streetsign gestures when the baker looked up. He already had a croque-monsieur and a hot chocolate mixed with a _tasse_ of coffee ready by the time she pulled up. Agathe back-pedaled to slow down. Amelie's single-speed hub with coaster brake was not as nice as the internal gear it had come with. Well, her fault for her brain sleepworking that into trash. It was good enough. The stallholder poured the pick-me-up into an outstretched vacuum flask as she balanced on two wheels.  
  
Agathe devoured the sandwich in three bites before she had gone a block. That happened every so often. There were times when her body craved food like a locomotive on high steam. A gulp of caffeine-laced cocoa sent her into overdrive. Half a year in Montmartre and its cafes had accustomed her to coffee. Now it only turned her into a **_glorious butterfly of velocity and adrenaline_** instead of setting windmills afire. She blamed the absinthe for that, really. The cold penetrated her thick duffel coat at this speed. She did not care. She did not want to be late for her first day of school.  
  
The Academie Clavelle was in one of the Rive Droit's wealthier quarters. It was not fashionable or the haunt of the elite. The houses on either side spoke of quiet wealth and power. The Academie itself was a Gothic manse of grey stone with vines climbing up its walls. A wrought-iron gate barred the way into a courtyard that would have been shaded by trees in summer. In the center was a fountain--its pool crusted with ice--in the form of the Muse Prende bearing her Chromatic Lantern high. Agathe resisted the urge to head around back to the servant's entrance. She belonged here even though merely a day student. Parking her bicycle in a rack, she pressed the bell in the panel in the wall to one side of the gate. A woman in a blue habit akin to a nun's stepped out.  
  
"Ah, you must be Madmoiselle Pandorée." The visage beneath the veil was a bronze mask of Athena. Optical receptors glowed a hellish red. "I am Soeur Bemelmann, the _maitresse_ for the junior years."  
  
"Oui, soeur." Agathe peered where the teacher's left hand would be. "Is that a Szilard galvanic projector?"  
  
"A souvenir of my days at the convent at Geneva." Soeur Bemelmann opened the gate. "Come. You are very early. Let me take you on a tour of the school. Then you will sit at table with your class."  
  
"Are they nice?" Agathe asked.  
  
"They are the daughters of the nobility." Soeur Bemelmann paused. "I am sure some of them could be construed as 'nice'. If you have any problems, speak with Colette. She is prefect for the juniors."  
  
The interior of the Academie was hushed in the early morning hours. There was only the noise of Soeur Bemelmann's steel sabatons ringing on the marble floors. Agathe looked around with increasing awe. She had picked up some cues on style from the rich patrons who gathered in the cabarets of Montmartre and Pigalle. Everything here spoke of nobility. The furnishings could have come from Andronicus Valois' palace at Versailles. Well, perhaps from the higher servants quarters. The fleur-de-lys sigil of the Valois and bas-reliefs of the Storm King himself were in almost every corner. A hint of anxiety tinged her feeling of anticipation. How had the Paris school system assigned her here?  
  
The Academie's facilities were as well appointed as its decorations. Agathe salivated at the array of instruments in the music room. They had everything from an antique harpsichord to a baby concert grand. A greenhouse in back provided both hands-on opportunities for horticultural biology studies along with material for the flower-arranging classes. Agathe hid her disappointment at the laboratory space. It was much smaller than she expected. The library's contents were also lighter on the sciences than she had hoped. Oh well, Jim had gotten her a library card from the _bibliotheque_ his brother was interning with. Jim had been vague on exactly where it was. But he assured her that she was welcome to borrow what she needed in return for volunteering her time.  
  
Her nervousness returned when they came to the dining hall. Ranks of tables were set more formally than Agathe was used to. A large table at the rear of the room was for the faculty. Soeur Bemelmann ushered her into a seat near the foot of the junior year table. Agathe wiped damp hands on a cloth napkin embroidered in gold fleur-de-lys as yawning girls filed into the common room. They were all dressed alike in the uniform of the Academie: a blue pinafore dress over a white blouse, with a red tie at their collars. Agathe wore the same as them. Yet something in the way their uniforms were draped and arranged just so made her own outfit seem like peasant's rags.  
  
"YOU!"  
  
"Yipe!" Agathe swiveled about to face an accusing finger.  
  
"You have stolen my seat!" Cold blue eyes glared at her. Wine-dark hair was tossed angrily. "For this insult, I demand satisfaction! We meet at dawn tomorrow! Choose your weapon!"  
  
Agathe's eyes narrowed.  
  
"How about this?" Agathe drew a hefty wrench from a pocket, smacking it hard in her palm.  
  
"Oooo, you have spirit!" The girl laughed. "So how was I? Not convincing, obviously. I never can get the harmonics right."  
  
"Fine. You had your joke on the new girl." Agathe stood up. "Have the seat. I already ate."  
  
"Don't take it to heart." The girl's gasped. "I know you! The park! The swooning girl!"  
  
Agathe froze as she recalled a doll of a girl sitting by her elder brother.  
  
"Hey! Everyone! This is her!" Xerxsephnia von Blitzegaard cried out. "This is the one who declared my brother the Storm King! She is the girl in Monsieur Toulouse-Lautrec's _Innocence_ series at the at the last Grande Salon. Mes amis! We have a celebrity among us!"  
  
Agathe risked a seizure trying to find out how to improvise a shrinking ray out of cutlery as everyone turned to stare at her.


	9. Background: Paris in the scheme of things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little meta piece about the wider political position of Voltaire's city.

Paris! City of Lightning! A haven for all whose reclusive Master is content to let his authority remain within the walls of his domain.  
  
Like all truths in Europa, this is not entirely correct.  
  
The France of Girl Genius is much more politically fragmented than the absolutist kingdom it evolved into under the Sun King of our world. "France" in the madness of Sparky Europa remains a divided polity dominated by various Sparks and mundane nobility. What would have been the equivalent of Louis XIV's unification of the realm in the Girl Genius world was destroyed with the fall of Andronicus Valois. The chaos across the Rhine in Middle and Eastern Europa is somewhat mitigated by even the most rabid French Spark of some pretensions to sophistication. The various struggles and minor conflicts of the Long War continue, but the French participants at least try to be more civilized about it.   
  
Paris itself is not a participant in these intrigues--well, _openly_ \--due to Simon Voltaire's policy of extremely armed neutrality. There is also an unspoken agreement among the French power players and the larger Fifty Families that anyone claiming Paris as his own must claim the Lightning Crown first. Simon Voltaire's status among the nobility of France is derived from a royal office that was granted by Andronicus Valois. Simon Voltaire is officially the Great Architect of His Majesty's Capital, responsible for the infrastructure and buildings of Paris. Since Simone Voltaire essentially embodies Paris' architecture and complex systems, this has granted him _de facto_ status as the ruler of the city. There is nominally a Constable of Paris to whom Simon is responsible to. The last office-holder of Constable died in the fighting of Andronicus' fall. Anyone attempting to get cute by claiming to be Constable dies of natural causes. Being horribly stung to death by bees is considered "natural" when you are stupid enough to try something on the Master of Paris.  
  
Simon Voltaire has of course considerable influence beyond the outer limits of Paris and the towns that comprise its _banlieus._ The French nobility and Sparky rulers consider Paris to be the cultural and economic--if not political--capital of France. The threat of being banned from the city is enough to make other French aristocrats tractable when Simon Voltaire makes a "request". Simon Voltaire also has more direct political power in the former royal demesne known as the Ile-de-France. The eleven counties that swore fealty directly to the throne continue to do so 'until the Storm King shall regain his crown". In reality, the lords of these counties govern themselves. They form a council which the Master of Paris or his representative attends as a symbol of "royal authority". In reality, Simon Voltaire in very much the _prime_ among the _pares._ This is perfectly acceptable, as Voltaire also maintains weapons and defenses for these lords. In return, they are Paris' outer line of defense. They also act as "independent agents" when Simon needs to intervene militarily without openly violating his position of neutraility.  
  
And so Paris and France in general remain outside of the Wulfenbach Empire...for now.


	10. Tag, You're the It Girl

Agathe felt like she had shown up for her first swimming lesson, only to be tossed into the middle of the Seine. She sat ramrod straight at her desk as Soeur Bemelmann lectured on the history of the rise of the House of Valois. She had read the material before in the books the Master had provided for her. The sister's presentation made it seem much more vivid. It was as if the sister had been alive at the time. It would have been fascinating if the daughter of every noble house in Paris were not whispering about her.  
  
Agathe was used to being called a freak. The peasant children of the villages her uncle had moved usually began taunting her a day after arrival. That she had learned to bear. It was less easy when the lowest-ranked student in her class was a count's daughter. There were at least two princesses--Xerxsephnia and Laranna--sitting in her row. Her prefect was Collete _Voltaire_. She was attending a school so far above her social station that she might as well be clinging to the dandling mooring line of a high-altitude airship.  
  
What made it so much worse was that the students were not snubbing her. Agathe's ears burned as she caught some of the whisperings of her classmates. She was the illegitimate daughter of the Golden Duke in some. In others, she was here to be groomed for society to be a noble's mistress. She might be only nine. But listening to the gossip among Henri's models-- _demimondaines_ from the cabarets and _maisons de joie_ of Pigalle--had taught her about things proper young ladies were not supposed to know. At least they were not accusing her of being the lost Heterodyne heir. That would have been too ridiculous.  
  
"You're a hit," Xerxsephnia whispered. "By the end of the day, you will be the most fascinating girl here."  
  
"They're saying I was born in a brothel!" Agathe hissed back. "I was only in one a few times, when they asked me to lead Henri home."  
  
"Tell me all about it." Xerxsephnia swiveled about. "Leave out no details."  
  
"I'm not going to tell Martellus' little sister about brothels," Agathe said.  
  
"You're no fun." Xerxephnia pouted. "You really should play up the bohemian from Montmartre. Or else you'll be the common girl let in for being smart. And then the claws will really come out."  
  
"I just want to learn," Agathe said, trying to listen to the lecture.  
  
"That?" Xerxsephnia cocked her head at Soeur Bemelmann. "Any one of us could learn history from our tutors. We are all here to study the game."  
  
"I am not sure I am cut out for this game," Agathe said.  
  
"Then you'll be crushed," Xerxsephnia said. "Running to the prefect won't help. I do not want that to happen to my friend."  
  
"You want to be my friend?" Agathe considered. "You mean you'll be more popular if you hang about with the crazy _demimondaine_."  
  
"You are a quick one." Xerxsephnia grinned. "And I also want to be your friend because my grumpy brother was floating on air after you called him the Storm King. Call me 'Seffie'."  
  
"Madmoiselles, if you are finished?" Feedback screeched from the sister's vocal circuits.  
  
"Please continue your fascinating lesson!" The princess sat up so innocently that a halo popped into existence over her head.  
  
Agathe bent her head down to concentrate on the lecture. But in her other ear, Xerxspehnia whispered a lesson of a very different type. Soeur Bemelmann talked of the consolidation of the Coalition of the West against the threat from the east. "Seffie" spoke of how every high-ranked girl was caught in a web of manners and customs that seemed to strangle them. The Storm King's speech which roused the west to his banner was accompanied by dry analyses of their schoolmates' individual flaws and secret longings. The procession of the Coalition's forces from the gates of Paris competed with advice on how to accentuate her bohemian reputation without violating the uniform rules.  
  
By the time they were dismissed, Agathe's brain was aching almost as if the headaches had returned. Her notes were a scribbled mess combining the two lessons in an impossible mess. She would have to tease out the two lessons by copying them out again. A stuttering around the edges of her vision warned her a spell was about to hit. She calculated pi backwards from one hundred places as her vision became a series of still lives. Agathe rushed as quickly as she could past the other students. She vaguely heard Xerxspehnia hail her as she stumbled past.  
  
The music hall was empty when she burst through the doors. She slammed them shut for privacy. Agathe walked like a maladjusted clank to the first piano she saw. A discordant rendition of scales came from the spinnet as her fingers stumbled across the keys. Each pass eased the seizures until _all that remained were the notes. Up and down the scales she went. Then she passed into arpeggios that became melodies that became a shadow of the great symphony that she heard in her dreams._ ** _She could fly high above everything in a night sky where stars and planets whirled in time with the vast mechanisms of the universe itself. Then she descended down and down_** , _improvisation becoming finger exercises_ down to scales again.  
  
Slumped over the keys, she wiped her brow with a sleeve. It came away damp. Playing so intensely always had her boilers at high. Her hands ached from pounding away so hard. Agathe slowly became aware of a gentle knocking. She managed to wobble over to open them. Outside, Colette Voltaire stood with a steaming teacup in hand. Her long, unruly hair fell to her waist; her features carried some of her father in them, though more cheerfully. A knot of students stared at Agathe with the queerest expressions. Xerxsephnia was among them with hands clasped over her heart. They could not be staring at her in wonder? That was madness. Colette held out the cup to her. Fingers curled around the it for relief. The prefect shut and locked the doors in the face of the crowd.  
  
"I didn't mean to disturb anyone with my playing," Agathe said. "I have a condition. The music--"  
  
"Papa told me of your seizures," Colette said. "Cherie, they probably heard you in Vienna. No matter. The staff know that you may need to come here from time to time."  
  
"I did not think he remembered me," Agathe said. "The Master of Paris must be too busy to think about one little girl."  
  
"Papa keeps his eye on those with--" Colette paused. "Those with potential. Some day you will rise high enough to be rubbing shoulders with these girls."  
  
"As the dancing bear at the circus," Agathe said. "Xerxsephnia explained about the game. How I should be the girl of loose morals from Montmartre."  
  
"I think there is a better role for you to play," Colette said. "How about the passionate _artiste_ who is often overcome by her art?"  
  
"That sounds much better!" Agathe nodded. "Montmartre is full of that type I can copy."  
  
"Don't be too pretentious, cherie," Colette advised. "You have true passion. Express it honestly. Especially with your camera."  
  
"Isn't painting more prestigious?"  
  
"The first _amours_ of your classmates is their mirrors," Colette said. "Ask them to become studies for your art with the lens. They will be falling over themselves to pose for you."  
  
"It all sounds so fake," Agathe said.  
  
"Artifice," Colette said. Her hand pressed into the small of Agathe's back. "Now, let's bring you out to your soon-to-be-adoring public."  
  
"Can't I sneak home and hide under the covers?" Agathe asked mournfully.  
  
" _Non_."  
  
+++++  
  
Tarvek might only be thirteen years old. But as a Sturmvoraus, he prided himself on having intricate plans for every eventuality. So he had had arrangements in place should the activities of his father and Lady Vrin had come to light. Those plans had not quite envisioned Baron Klaus Wufenbach free-falling a kilometer-long airship along with most of his fleet right over Sturmhalten on Chistmas Eve. Not had he expected an army from Mechanicsburg lead by vengeful Jaegers to burrow up into the Deep Down to assault the Geisterdammen's nest from below.  
  
So he had ended up shooting the two of the Geisters assigned to spirit himself and Anevka to safety in the back of the head. His sister had slit the throat of the third. By some miracle of the season, they had escaped in the chaos of the fighting to a cache in some woods that had not been compromised. Of course, Violetta had found them when they had finally emerged from the woods in the guise of peasant children. Damn it all, he had sent her to Paris exactly because he had had a bad feeling that something bad was coming. His cousin was amazingly loyal for someone who wanted his entrails on fire.  
  
It irked him that it had not been any plan of his that had gotten them as this village just north of Trieste. It had been constant, desperate improvisation that had seen the last of their coin disappear into the hands of the village gate guards as entry bribes. Funds were not a problem. Between the three of them, their incomplete Smoke Knight training could let them survive on petty theft indefinitely. Anevka had already poisoned three men who had mistaken her desperation for "company" as innocent helplessness. But Violetta was becoming annoyed at having to dig graves in isolated places. And eventually, their luck would run out. What they needed was cover.  
  
"Ladies and gentlemen, Master Payne's Circus has shown you visions of wonder. Yet we also offer sublime beauty as well."  
  
Tarvek glanced at the Heterodyne Show whose stage occupied the southern half of the town square. He knew this pitch. Some actress would come on stage dressed in a mockery of Van Rijn's work--  
  
\--"I present to you a treasure long-thought lost--”  
  
\--Tarvek froze when he saw the graceful figure stride onto the stage--  
  
\--"Tinka, the Muse of Performance!”  
  
A half-hour later, Tarvek was having a most interesting conversation with the massive magician who headed the troupe...


	11. The New Look

Seffie's shriek of delight echoed off the vaults of the _halle._ The underground marketplace beneath Le Marais was part of the undercity below Paris' streets. Hefting her camera, Agathe captured her best subject in the midst of yet another assault on the unsuspecting merchants of Paris. The lens always caught her at the right moment posing with something that was "delightfully bohemian" or "absolutely daring, I could not dare wear it, yet I must!" Every stall had a piece or trinket that Seffie absolutely had to have. The purse that Seffie had had Agathe carry--apparently carrying your own money was _gauche_ for an aristocrat beyond coins for a gratuity--apparently contained its own internal mint. The money never seemed to run out. Thankfully, neither did the carrying capacity of the porter they had hired for this expedition into Paris ' _demimonde_. Jim was becoming buried under the weight of parcels and bags that usually accumulated outfitting for a foray to the lost Americas.  
  
Agathe shopped at a more sedate pace. There had been a time when, new to Paris, she had been shocked by how much was for sale everywhere. Britain might claim to be the greatest trading power in Europa. It was the City of Lightning where goods from across the World gathered in the markets and shops. The temptation to buy everything had afflicted her like the parable of the Jaeger who had starved while caught between two hats. Unlike Seffie, she did not have an allowance the equivalent of a small duchy's treasury. What she bought wasn't "exquisitely distressed, yet chic!" It was the little treasures that with some stitching or time on her workbench could serve.  
  
She ran her fingers over a black jacket with hints of dark lace at the sleeves. Be mysterious, Seffie had urged her. Be bold. You are an _artiste_ haunted by your tragic past. Lifting up the garment, she examined it with what little she had learned after a month among the fashion-obsessed girls of the Academie. It was at least a year out of fashion. Maybe she could alter it a bit to make it a bit looser in the style of Montmartre. It definitely was different than the greens-and-gold of the clothes provided to her by the city. Agathe frowned. Some consumptive gothic was not really her thing. Oh--there was that dark crimson cravat at the other stall. She had a derby at home that she had bought as a joke. Wear it with a pair of dark lace skirts for a touch of the Romani look...  
  
"Jim, what do yo think?" Agathe asked, holding it up against herself.  
  
"Hrrrmmm hhmmmhmmm."  
  
"Sweet lightning. Hold on." Agathe swiftly relieved him of some of the packages. "Sorry. Seffie has to reach a spending limit sometime. I think."  
  
"I'm good." Jim juggled the remaining mountain range into a new order. "Anyway, this counts as community service. I--"  
  
"--really need the credit." Agatha shook her head. "You wouldn't need to do so much extra if you weren't always setting your schools on fire."  
  
"The last time was not my fault," Jim insisted. "Those clockwork emus had to be stopped."  
  
"Paris' greatest hero," Agathe said. She held up the jacket. "What do you think? With the derby and some button-up steel toed boots beneath the skirts?"  
  
"Trousers," Jim replied.  
  
"Trousers?" Agathe blinked.  
  
"I don't know why you bother with dresses and skirts," Jim said.  
  
"Because that is what girls wear, Jim," Agathe said.  
  
"You'd look stronger in trousers," Jim said. "It'd fit. You're the strongest person I know."  
  
"Now you're mocking me," Agathe said. "Madame Seizure is the strongest person you know?"  
  
"You take every failure life hands you," Jim said. "And you keep trying. Everyone sees that. It makes anyone who meets you fall in love."  
  
"Jim, you say the sweetest things." Agathe blushed. "You're the best big brother a girl could ever have."  
  
"Yeah. Big brother." Jim's smile was a bit strained. He really was carrying too much.  
  
"Right, next time Seffie comes up with 'one more thing'?" Agathe said. "We're cutting her off. She can carry the rest."  
  
Agathe paused before a dusty mirror. Pulling taught a sleeve, she flexed her arm like the strongmen of the streets did. Well. When had that happened? Thoughful, she went in search of trousers. It turned out to be a bit more involved than she had anticipated. The only trousers on sale fo women were bloomers or _shalwar kameez_ offered among the wares of kaftan-wearing Sephardics. The trousers on sale for men did not fit as well. They were, er, tighter in certain areas. Which did not imply anything by that she had perfectly respectable callypygian build.  
  
Agathe posed again before a mirror after she had finally found something that fit. In fact, they were black leather airman's overalls that clung too tightly for comfort. Maybe they would break in? Like shoes? The cravat was tied in place and secured with a gold stickpin bearing the three orbs of House Voltaire. She had almost chosen the fleur-de-lys. But even her poor instincts for the game warned her that might make the wrong statement. With a flourish, she plopped a crushed top hat atop her head in lieu of a derby. In one hand was a huge wrench meant for working with locomotive bolts that she had repurposed as a walking stick. Of course, it would come in handy if she ever had to ride a Corbetite train.  
  
Hand on one hip, she posed with a sneer copied from the Lurcrezias she had seen in Heterodyne plays.  
  
Wow.  
  
That was not the girl she was used to looking at.  
  
Be bold.  
  
Agathe tilted her head when she spotted something in the other stall behind her. Curious, she unearthed the globe from beneath a pile of junk from the spare-parts merchant. It was covered in grime and crusted grease. There was a plate at the bottom with holes that indicated it might have been part of a larger assembly. The base was some sort of statuette that might have been sculpted to mimic Atlas holding up the world. A careful tap with her walking-wrench on the globe made it ring like glass or crystal. A certain hum escaped her lips as she contemplated i--  
  
"Agathe?" Hands gently eased her down.  
  
"Seff." Agathe swallowed against the spittle that came with an attack. "Was I away for long?"  
  
"No, only a moment." Seffie gently took the globe from her hands. "Darling, I can't tell you how much I love your look! The girls at the Academie will scream!"  
  
"In horror?" Agathe gestured. "I don't look too mannish, do I?"  
  
"You look smashing." Seffie clapped her hands with glee. "That isn't bold! That is _transgressive!_ "  
  
"I can't wear this in class," Agathe said.  
  
"As a day student, you may wear it to and from school," Seffie lectured. She smirked. "You may also be forced to wear it if some prankster destroys your uniform with a Wacky Weave Destabilizer."  
  
"Don't you dare!"  
  
"Helping!" Seffie fluttered her eyes.  
  
"I actually like the school uniform." Agathe checked the globe. "Well, at least I didn't crack it."  
  
"Here, allow me," Seffie said, reaching into her purse slung about Agathe's shoulder.  
  
"I don't want to mooch off you," Agathe protested.  
  
"You'll pay me back by letting me stay the night." Seffie winked. "I am supposed to spend the weekend with at the family manse. But we are as close as sisters. You are practically family."  
  
"You can stay in Montmartre," Agathe said, standing up. "But I am not explaining to your brother that I snuck you into the Island of the Monkey Girls."  
  
"Then we shall listen to _le jazz_ ," Seffie said, "and drink some wine I smuggled out of the family cellars."  
  
"You're a menace to my morals," Agathe chided.  
  
"But of course." Seffie cocked her head. "What in the world do you think it is?"  
  
"Not sure." Agathe peered closer. "But...I think it might be a lamp."


	12. Sunglasses after Dark

Sliding it from its sleeve, Agathe held the record at the edges with her fingertips. Only a barbarian would risk ruining its sound with oily fingerprints. She woulld have not noticed a few months ago. Something had happened to her ears since she had come to Paris. Minor scratches that she might have dismissed before grated on her nerves. A skipping record was _wrong_ because it _ruined the pure experience of the performance_. That was why Jim had been banned from touching her collection on pain of hideous death. She was still a bit sorry from the scars from the incident where he has tossed a disc of the first cycle of the _Storm King_ opera. But he had to learn that records were not _to be flicked about as if they were street urchins tossing about a pie plate. The wages of such sin must be punished_. Right. Calm breaths. Agathe placed the disc reverently on the turntable, placing the needle into its groove just so.  
  
She adjusted the sound horn of the old-fashioned clockwork gramophone to the precise position that would suit the acoustics of her garrett. Her toes were already tapping in her boots when the opening riffs came out strong. Listening to a recording of jazz was never as good as live. Live meant mistakes and imperfections. But it also meant improvisation and spontaneity and those willd moments when it all caught fire in the night. Anyone could join in if they had the chops. Some mornings, she had woken up in a corner of a cabaret after hours riffing with titans like Monsieur Monck or Django who had humoured an eager little girl with her accordion. Those were the mornings when all that had kept her going was a hurried wash at home with a stiff cup of coffee.  
  
Jazz on disc was never as good as in the clubs. It was still amazing. Agathe smirked when Little Miss Sophisticated's eyes grew round when the swing in the music kicked up. Ha! Seffie had thought herself smart by dropping a few references to jazz here and there. It was obvious she had never heard the good stuff. Agathe popped on a pair of shades onto Seffie to match hers and Jim's. Wearing sunglasses listening to jazz at night meant you bumped into things. But you had to. Agathe broke out into a wild dance at the mad bops of Monsieur Monck's _Naissance de Cool_. Take the provocative melodies of Mechanicsburg stutterstep, mix into a _melange_ of everything from Romani folk music to the wail of oud and drum from the Ottoman lands, then simmer in Montmartre cabarets. That was _le jazz chaud._  
  
They danced until the couple downstairs finally banged on the ceiling below with a broomhandle. Seffie had to take off the last record. Agathe's head was swimming. She had decided to be the responsible one tonight with just a polite sip of stolen wine. But her nefaioush--nish-- _nefarious_ , that was it, friend had pouted every time Agathe said that that was the last shotglass of red ambrosia she would have. Jim had to carry her to the bed. They all fllopped down together in a jumble. Agathe wormed her way in closer between her two friends. She still slept in the drawer. The bed was still too big and lonely without Uncle Barry. But now it was just right with all three of them together. She wouldn't wake up thinking of a dying heart and white eyes in the night.  
  
"Hey, you're not drunk," Jim said. "How are you not drunk, Seff?"  
  
"I am Grandmama's prize student." Seffie posed triumphantly. Then she fell over. "Ah, I may need more work on this lesson."  
  
"Watch out." Agathe snickered. "We're gonna wake up in some dungeon gettin' our organs removed while we watch."  
  
"Not again," Jim groaned. "Aldin is still mad at me the last time that happened."  
  
Seffie stared at him.  
  
"Clockwork emush. Itsh a thing." Agathe hiccuped. "Not worried. You're the hero. Jim,. You'll get your bumblin' minion outta trouble."  
  
"I hardly see you as a minion," Seffie said.  
  
"Shuuuure I am." Agathe rolled her eyes. "Like, it'll be 'hey Jim, Parish ish on fire, an' Agathe's spaced out again with a bucket on her head.'"  
  
"I figured I would be your sidekick," Jim said. "The guy who you groan at whenever I release a horrible monster on Paris."  
  
"Another lecture from the Master?"  
  
"Yeah, Il'm scheduled for next week."  
  
"And would I be the third of your companions of adventure?" Seffie asked.  
  
"Um. I don" shee you ash a heroine." Agathe considered it. "You're more a Lucreshia. Like, myshteroush adventuresh with a hidden agenda."  
  
"She could be our handler." Jim clasped his hands together and batted his eyes. "She'll be the one who gives us the secrete missions on behalf of your beloved Storm King."  
  
"You _maudit salaud_ ," Agathe snarled. "Thash shupposed to be a secret--"  
  
"His portait is hanging right there," Seffie said. She smiled. "Take a knee before me, darlings. Jim, would there be a sword about?"  
  
"Uh, would this do?" Jim handed her the walking-wrench.  
  
"Indeed it will." Seffie tapped Agathe on one shoulder, then the other. "As the sister of the Storm King, and princess, I dub the Dame Agathe Pandoree, knight-banneret of the House of Blitzengaard."  
  
"I sho swear." Agathe grinned. "Why not put ush into the Knightsh of Jove, junior divishion?"  
  
"Because you want to be heroes." Seffie looked a little sad. "Now, for you, Monsieur Hoffman."  
  
There were toasts alll around after Sir Jiminez Hoffman arose from his drubbing. Uh, dubbing?. The last glass actually knocked Seffie out for real. Agathe snorted. Lightweight. She was pretty well toasted herself when she crawled behind the changing screen dragging Seffie. She heard Jim getting ready for bed as she got both herself and Seffie into dressing gowns. Agathe had to lie down for a while until the room's spinning stopped. Heh. The three of them needed a cool name for their secret order of knighthood. The Valois Girls Plus One Boy? Ugh. It needed work. They also needed a secret base of operations and decoder rings and death rays. Lots of death rays, to fry Martellus's enemies into charcoal briquettes.  
  
Boom. Zttt. Heee!  
  
Agathe hauled Seffie--cackling in her sleep--to the bed where Jim was already passed out on the covers. Agathe placed Princess Stompyboots between then to chaperone. Stretching, Agathe decided she wasn't actually tired. A part of her calculating alcohol consumption to body mass thought that she should be out drooling on the floorboards. But she had shaken it off. Huh. Musht be the trousers. They made her strong. It was scientific fact. Agathe hefted the probably-a-lamp as she wobbled to her workbench. She draped a tarpaulin over it before going to work brushes and degreaser.  
  
Agathe gazed up at the firm-jawed image of Marellush--lish-- _Tweedle_. King Tweedle, all hail. She and Jim needed a lab to make things for the Storm King like Van Rijn had. Cool things. Like a--a _gramophone fit to play a fanfare at Tweedle's coronation. Her own was inadequate for the task. Although, she could see how she might improve it. She had all sorts of parts tucked away that could serve. The stuttering started again. Agathe_ ** _focused. She imagined the glorious, triumphant symphony playing as the Storm King stood before her with medals in hand for the exploits she and Jim had performed in his name._**  
  
Beneath a brush, gold scales emerged from under countless decades of muck.  
  
**_She couldn't craft it herself. She was no Spark. Help. Agathe sang softly for her fellow knight. Her boon companion in adventure came her her. There was a flame in him that she had always known was there. She sang the fanfare she heard in her mind. Two pairs of hands were better than one. And three pairs were better than two. Seffie had watched her brother at work. So she was an excellent helper as Agathe worked with Jim who kept the stuttering away and it was coming together and Martellus would be proud._**  
  
**_SHE WOULD SHOW HIM SHE WAS WORTHY_**.  
  
++++  
  
Agathe groaned as she once again experienced a hangover. She was shackling Seffie down hard if she ever tried to serve her wine again. Had she passed out at the workbench. Slowly, realization dawned that she was standing up. Agathe blinked She was being held up in the grip between two of the purple-clad Serpents of the Parisian police. What? Her head snapped to the open doorway of her garrett. The shoulders of two more police bearing carbines at port arms was visible through a web of yellow caution tape with black _FOU!_ printed on it every few centimeters.  
  
They only put that kind of tape up for one reason.  
  
" _I feel so very strange_ ," Jim said.  
  
"Just relax, cherie."  
  
Agathe jerked about as much as she could. Colette Voltaire crouched by her bed in a Serpent's uniform with the rank of a Captain on her cap. Caked in grease and dirt, Seffie huddled in the arms of a grim Martellus von Blitzengaard. A portly, white-haired man with a Parisian's dark skin examined something in the corner of my room. My gramophone, Agathe thought. Parts of it were certainly visible within a column of brass and steel parts. Agathe recognized the pieces from her collection of scraps: a broken steam calliope, a clank's vocal box, tuning forks and her half-done mechanical nutcracker.  
  
At its base was a blue orb with golden bands around it held up by a small statuette.  
  
Emblazoned on the front was a sigil that matched the one portrayed by her locket.  
  
" _Professeur_ Zardilev?" Colette asked. "Your analysis."  
  
"it is a record player," the portly man said. "I am not sure of precisely what it might do. But it does not appear lethal. Crude but brilliantly done. This is extraordinary for a first creation by one so young."  
  
"I believe she is talking about the bloody Heterodyne artifact, Uncle Tick-tock!" Martellus shouted.  
  
"Safe as the creations of the enemy go," Zardilev replied. "It is a power source."  
  
"It's a lamp," Agathe said.  
  
Everyone turned to stare at her.  
  
"Well, I am sure it is." Agathe tugged at the Serpents. "Am I under arrest? I had no idea that it ws a Heterodyne artifact. I know the rules about registering them."  
  
"Brother, she is telling the truth," Seffie said.  
  
"We will all settle matters before Papa at court." Colette said.  
  
"But, what happened?" Agathe cried.  
  
Colette hesitated for a tiny moment.  
  
"Well, cherie, your friend here has broken through."  
  
" _Will this get me off about the emus_?"  
  
"Non. You will still have to go to the lecture."  
  
" _Awwwwwwwww_."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know that having jazz and Django Reinhardt exist in 1880's Paris is anachronistic as hell. Alternate universe and fictional continuity, so enjoy the unicorns roaming free.


	13. Allo, Paris!

Simon Voltaire could not resist a touch of showmanship to the affair.  
  
To be sure, any breakthrough device required caution when upon first activation. Care was even more warranted when said device was the collaboration between a sleepsparking Heterodyne and Jiminez Hoffman. The boy's exploits in saving Paris required a tiny-yet-significant outlay in the city budget to account for the collateral damage. Voltaire silently quadrupled it to account for the Spark. Still, Zardilev's competent field analysis had been corroborated by two separate screening teams and Voltaire himself. So it was not quite justified to have the device isolated in a dangerous mechanicals chamber while they witnessed through blastproof glass.  
  
If he was honest, Simon missed the days of his youth when he had dazzled Paris with feats of sorcerous SCIENCE! Few histories that survived mentioned that he had once been a penniless street magician and mountebank as a boy. The thrill of a good performance that divided mark from coin had been both art and survival. Of coure, one such mark had been Master Van Rijn. That was the start of learning true wizardry. So Simon could not help himself with a bit of flamboyance to the affair. A Heterodyne artifact was involved, after all.  
  
Agathe clung to her friend Jim as the armored clank arm delicately placed the record that had been on the turntable at the gramophone's discovery. She had dressed in her smartest school uniform for an audience at the Awful Court. Pity, he had found her mannish outift from yesterday amusing. The two Blitzengaards were of course immaculately turned out in court dress. Young Martellus did his best not to look hungrily on the orb nestled within the breakthrough device. Little Xerxephnia seemed awed by it all. She was a little too enthralled. Terebithia would have had her hide for being so obvious.  
  
Colette threw the knife switch that closed the relay installed between the Heterodyne artifact and the device's power systems. Simon tensed when the mirrored ball popped out of the top of the gramophone. How had everyone missed that? The steam calliope pipes unfolded into a peacock's fan. Then the stylus entered the groove. Feloniuous Monck's _Naissance du Cool_ sounded out with tones crisp and clear as if the players themselves were right before them. Every note was perfectly pitched and matched to the rest of the music. The mirror-ball spun about in a dazzling, harmless light show. Simon could not help tapping his feet and snapping his fingers.  
  
Neither could everyone else in the observation cell.  
  
"Colette, range of influence?" Simon asked.  
  
"The Hamelin effect has everyone in the Awful Tower spontaneously dancing." Colette was jiving in her seat before an array of monitors. "Not syncopated. No risk of structural failure due to resonance effects."  
  
"Ha! Monsieur Hoffman, you have achieved a miracle," Martellus said. "You have made this trash listenable."  
  
Xerxsephnia face-palmed.  
  
"Uh, it’s Agathe's record," Jiminez said. "Actually, this isn't my work at all! This was all her ideas."  
  
"The tests were clear," Simon said. They should be. He had tailored them personally. "It is you who are the Spark. The style of the device is all yours."  
  
Considering how closely that had been working, that Agathe's style had deeply imprinted itself on Hoffman's was perfect camouflage.  
  
"Ah, now I see. You were so eager to please your _fille_." Martellus smacked his hand down on Jiminez's shoulder. "You broke through to realize what she could not craft. She is your Muse!"  
  
"I--" Agathe screwed the toe of a shoe into the floorplates. "I wanted to make something worthy for your coronation, your highness."  
  
"Indeed, there was an inscription." Colette beamed. " _To King Tweedle the First._ "  
  
"I was a little tipsy," Agathe said, face red as a tomato.  
  
"It is the thought that counts," Martellus said through gritted teeth. "I accept your gift, Madmoiselle Pandorée."  
  
"Of course, a true king would decline to take my own gift from her." Xerxsephnia smiled all sweetness and acid. "A Heterodyne artifact would be so valuable for a girl without family or fortune."  
  
" _Seffie_ ," Martellus growled under his breath.  
  
"It's alright," Agathe said. "I'm only nine. I can't do justice to such a treasure."  
  
Martellus flicked his gaze to Simon.  
  
"It was granted to you by my sister, my dear girl." Martellus bowed. "If you would permit me to keep it in custody until you are of age?"  
  
"Sure!" Jiminez said. "We can all examine it together."  
  
"Hmmm. Every young Spark should have a patron." Martellus nodded to Simon. "If there is no prior claim by our illustrious Master, I would be proud to have such a promising lad and his minion as apprentices."  
  
"YES YES YES I ACCEPT!"  
  
"I defer to the young lady's wishes," Simon said.  
  
"Master! Could you hook the gramophone into the broadcast systems?" Agathe tugged his arm. "I want everyone to feel as happy as I do!"  
  
"Yeah! We could have everyone call into to vote on which music to play next," Jiminez said.  
  
Simon was about to refuse, of course.  
  
Then he looked into Agathe’s joyful features.  
  
+++++  
  
"Testing, testing."  
  
"We’re live!"  
  
"We are?"  
  
"Go ahead, darling. All of Paris is listening."  
  
A deep breath was heard over the public broadcast system in every corner of the city.  
  
" **Hey hey, this is Agathe Pandorée with a forecast of grooviness for the next three hours. Me and Jim and Seffie here are going to bring all of the hepcats and gone daddies all the cool jams and hot beats** \--"  
  
"---is it the other way around?"  
  
" **Quiet, you! We're going to bring you all that with a side order of swing. I hope everyone is ready to do some hoofing."**  
  
"What do you want the volume?"  
  
**"As if there was any question? PUMP IT UP!** "  
  
++++  
  
"Look at them go." Martellus peered through a telescope. "They are doing _pliés_ and _jettées_ along the Champs an hour after the broadcast."  
  
"Paris is well-worth a dance," Simon said.  
  
"Grandmère is likely already planning a party to outdo this." Martellus snapped the telescope closed. "I never saw you as one for whimsey, Master."  
  
"Perhaps I felt the urge for a bit of nonsense," Simon replied.  
  
"Of course. You would want to indulge the girl," Martellus said. "I quite understand."  
  
"Do you?" Simon quietly readied certain systems.  
  
"A young girl appears, listed as the daughter of a dissolute minor noble recently found dead in Rome." Martellus nodded. "Ending up being sent to the Academie Clavelle with Colette as prefect. Little Agathe is a natural-born Voltaire, of some minor branch, isn't she? With her infirmity, the potential for embarrassment--"  
  
"I trust you will be discreet," Simon said.  
  
"I do like to think of myself as a young man of the world." The sixteen-year old chuckled knowingly. "And I have read old Andronicus' letters. I am hardly prejudiced against her unfortunate circumstances of birth."  
  
"Her heritage may be prove troublesome in the future," Simon admitted.  
  
"Have no worries, Master." Martellus tapped the side of his nose. "I shall do my part to find her decent prospects when she is of age. After all, she was the first to recognize me as king."  
  
Simon waited until Martellus von Blitzengaard was several levels away from the Awful Office before letting rip a belly-laugh. Collapsing on his throne, Simon surrendered to the cackles that could not stop coming. How long had it been since he had truly enjoyed himself? Black fire and slag, it had been decades since he had last felt the weight of the city fall from his shoulders. The city itself was in a euphoric mood as the resonance of the Hamelin effect lingered in the populace. Several swimming clubs were performing an amusing routine in the Seine. There was a pick-up line dance along the Rue de Pleiosaur. Everywhere, Parisians and tourists alike twirled and spun and dipped on their day-to-day business.  
  
Simon decided on a whim to visit the family chateau for the day. It had been months since he visited the Asylum. He rarely left the Awful Tower. There was always one thing or another to hold his attention. Perhaps today he should spend time with his children, as quarrelsome as they could be. A review of the meteorological systems found it a perfectly fine winter day. Simon canceled the steam-coach that had automatically been scheduled when the impulse to visit the chateau had hit him. Why, he would walk this day along the streets that he only had seen through remote views for so long.  
  
The gramophone's influence had subsided enough that the compulsion to go _en pointe_ down the hallway was easily resisted. Agathe and Jiminez were in the dangerous mechanicals lab tearing apart the device. The Heterodye artifact had been disconnected. It was now sealed in a Class Four security chest for delivery to the Blitzengaard palace. The two children were busy working with voltaic piles and capacitors to provide a new power source. The readings of Agathe's mind as she consciously worked with Jiminez were a fount of priceless data. Still shacked by his mechanisms, she had still managed to express herself while easing her friend through what otherwise would have been a lethally-young breakthrough. Colette nodded to him from her position close by to supervise them.  
  
"So young and yet so powerful," Colette said through a private channel.  
  
"Patience," Simon said. "You will come into your gift in time."  
  
"Papa, you should take her on as your apprentice." Colette winked at him. "After all, our king-to-be has provided the perfect excuse."  
  
"Stop eavesdropping, child." Simon glowered. "And you know very well why I cannot."  
  
"She may be a Heterodyne," Colette said. "But she is a true child of Paris."  
  
"Agathe is a scion of the enemy," Simon said. "I cannot risk her learning my secrets."  
  
"And what happens when the Blitzengaards discover the truth?" Colette frowned. "What Martellus plans to do should he find the Heterodyne Girl."  
  
"He will never find out," Simon said. "I have proven that I can keep her contained in this manner. She will be nothing more than a talented minion.  
  
"She will never know her heritage. She will be kept **_safe_**."


	14. Games of Crowns

Ladies took cabs.  
  
Like so many rules of the game, Agathe thought that one was rather silly. _Le Métro_ and the trams could get you anywhere in Paris. Only tourists paid fares on public transport. The citizens of the City of Lightning boarded for free with a palm-print scan. Lunatics like Jim could dash across the rooftops. Sane girls like Agathe stayed on the streets where the life of the city pulsed. You could get anywhere on the city by cycle or your own two feet. But the rules were clear. A lady had to come calling in an expensive hired coach that took twice the time to get anywhere. No lady coming to call arrived sweaty from pedalling or disheveled from straphanging.  
  
Not that she was doing anything like calling upon a man, Agathe thought furiously. Even in Paris, nine-year old girls did not do that! She was visiting Martellus von Blitzengaard as an apprentice minion to her Master. Hyperactive mimmoths tap-danced in her stomach. She wasn't ready to be a minion! They had barely started on lab protocol at the Academie. One by one, she hunted down every trumpeting mimmoth of fear to crush hard under her heel. She was his sworn knight-banneret. Every knight was once page and squire. She would learn.  
  
Agathe examined herself in the mirror one more time. Seffie had ambushed her after class. Dragging her into a side-closet, her friend had proceeded to play dress-up with her favorite doll. Agathe had thought that the least faded of her old wardrobe was good enough. There was no way she was seeing Martellus in trousers! Seffie had insisted that she be both elegant and true to her bohemian self. So off Agathe went in a twin to her black jacket tailored with a bit more lace and silver accents. A black skirt with just a bit of flare to be "properly improper"--according to Seffie-- fell to her ankles. Perched atop her head was her derby upon the hairdo that Seffie had inflicted on her.  
  
The cab rocked on its suspension.  
  
A grinning Jim swung through the window into the opposite seat.  
  
"Hi, Agathe." He stared at her. "Wow. Seffie went all out on you."  
  
"I feel like I am wearing a bedspring wig." Agathe patted the ringlets that Seffie had torturously inflicted with curling irons. "If I fall over, I'll end up bouncing all the way to Calais."  
  
"I can see it." Jim fluttered his eyelids and thrust out his arms, "Oh, prince, you truly do-- BOING BOING BOING!"  
  
"Prepare to experiece pain beyond comprehension." Agathe withdrew a pair of vice grips from her purse. "Suzette at Madame Froissart's taught me this neat trick."  
  
"Geez, I didn't mean anything by it!" Cringing back, Jim crossed his legs. "I don't get it. Most of the time you're normal. You're the only girl I can talk to. Then you go full Seffie on Martellus."  
  
"Am I that bad?" Agathe set down the vice grips. " _Merde_. I must come off as a big joke to him. Like those girls in the upper years, swooning over some boy whose picture they saw in the social pages."  
  
"No, you're more enthusiastic." Jim shrugged. "Maybe it's some disease all girls get. You are just asymptmatic most of the time."  
  
"I don't think about boys much," Agathe admitted. "Even about Martellus, it's just him swooping in and holding me in his arms while we crush all who would oppose his enlightened tyranny. Just daydreams."  
  
"What would you want?" Jim asked.  
  
"Pffft. I've years before I have to bother with that." Agathe swung her legs back and forth. "Someone I can talk to. Someone who doesn't mind I'm still a cripple. Smart. Heroic."  
  
"You'll find some guy like that," Jim said. He seemed preoccupied, staring out the cab window. "Maybe even Martellus will wake up and see you that way."  
  
"You're so sweet, Jim." Agathe hugged him hard. "Martellus might have been the perfect gallant that day. But you were my _voix de la raison_. You keep me grounded."  
  
The treads of the cab stopped rumbling on pavement. They had arrived. Fumbling in her clutch, Agathe perched the smoked-glass pince-nez on the bridge of her nose. Her Muse of Fashion had declared them _trop sophistiquée_ compared to her usual glasses. Well, Pairs had for now declared her the Queen of Jazz. A few passerby on the street cheeredas she stepped down from the former steam-powered half-track that had been turned into a taxi. Agathe forced herself not to cringe at the attention. It would blow over. People could become the toast of Paris one minute, then end up on the ash-heap of the obscure the next.  
  
Agathe handed her card to the concierge on duty at Martellus' building. That was another game that ladies played, apparently. It was a big game of tag leaving cards at each other's doors while everyone was out leaving cards at everyone else's. Finding someone actually At Home meant you won. Agathe had asked Seffie why a rational system of scheduling based on a disributed, shared program running on Paris' communications systems could not eliminate the inefficiency. There had been a rant explaining it all delivered with such vehemence that Agathe had mentally filed it under a Hoffmanesque "Society Was Weird" category. There was a lot filed under that.  
  
Her card was whisked up by pneumatic tube. Agathe winced. She did not have many cards. They were so expensive! A few moments later, an actual footman in white-and-gold livery stepped out of the elevator to usher her upstairs. The footman hesitated before letting Jim in as well. Jim had done his best. He had actually ironed his breeches and usual dark shirt. A brush had passed through his hair within recent history. Agathe decided not to worry about it. Jim was Jim. He would dress that way appearing before a conclave of all seven popes. Be _le cool_ , Agathe told herself. Be professional. Be worthy of serving as his minion.  
  
The elevator doors opened upon a party.  
  
Martellus von Blitzengaard had taken three whole floors atop a building on the Rue Suffrene as bachelor quarters while he attended the Institute of the Extraordindary. The footman had brought them to a floor where every non-structural wall had been knocked down to create a vast space. Clusters of furniture in traditional Valois style were arranged about like islands in a vast sea of gleaming dark wood. Through the great windows to the east, the Champs des Mervilles and the Awful Tower itself could be seen. Young men dressed in the fashions of the elite mingled with young ladies whose type Agathe knew well. They were sort who appeared on the arms of those men when slumming in Pigalle. They usually had vague occupations connected to theatre or dance.  
  
All around the room lay what could be called dogs. They were huge, wolfsh hounds with goggles over their glowing blue eyes. Agathe had read of these creatures. These were _sparkhunds_. The old nobility had bred them to hunt down rogue thinkomancers in the days before the rise of the Storm King. The Mongfishes had infamously altered them to be even more vicious and lethal to better hunt down rival Sparks Agathe stayed very cool indeed when toothy muzzles circled her. Noses sniffed both her and Jim before they parted before the leader of their pack.  
  
Martellus strode towards them impeccably dressed in white and gold. There was a broad, welcoming smile on his lips. He ruffled the fur atop the sparkhunds' head as they circled about him . Blue eyes looked down at her. For a moment, Agathe felt herself before a cool intelligence that evaluated every inch of her posture and attire. It was silly, of course. But for a second, Agathe thought he might order the hounds to attack if he found her wanting. Sweet lightning, she must be more nervous than she had thought. Agathe curtsied to him deeply. Jim bowed after she kicked his ankle.  
  
"Your majesty, I did not know there was a party," Agathe said. "If we are disturbing you, we can come back."  
  
"It is properly your highness, my dear," Martellus said. "I am not king."  
  
"YET!" chorused the crowd.  
  
"Thank you all!" Martelllus waved gaily at them.  
  
"Hey, don't these things hunt people?" Jim asked.  
  
"Of course they don't hunt people," Martellus said. "Only traitors and enemies."  
  
"No hunt," one of the sparkhunds, wearing a crimson collar. "Protect! Martellus' girl."  
  
"See? Tybalt is excellent with children." Martellus tipped the contents of a pouch into the palm of Agathe's hand. "Here, offer these to him,"  
  
"TREEEAAAAATS!" Tybalt slavered.  
  
"I'm getting my hand back, aren't I?" Agathe gingerly extended her arm to the drooling creature. "Ack! Slobber!"  
  
"These have some serious dentition." Jim had stuck his head into the maw of one. "This looks like Vapnoople's work"  
  
"Well-spotted, young man." Martellus eased his head out just before the jaws clashed shut. "I am apprenticed to Doctor Dmitri Vapnoople. Animals constructs are a specialty of mine."  
  
"Oh yes, you made the singing bear for Seffie when she was sick," Agathe said. "Mr. Fuzzlebum is so cute. You wouldn't even spot the venom sacs if you weren't looking."  
  
"My breakthrough, just as the wonderful gramophone was Herr Hoffman's." Martellus winked. "With of course the inspiration provided by Paris' _maitresse des ceremonies._ "  
  
"If I knew there was a party," Agathe said, "I would have brought it along."  
  
"Perhaps you might entertain us later," Martellus said, gesturing at a baby grand piano. "But first I must show off such an ornaments of my court to my friends."  
  
"Your highness, I might have sworn to be your knight like Agathe," Jim said. "I just did that to make her happy."  
  
"My knights." A slight edge entered Martellus' tone. "What precisely did you swear to?"  
  
"Seffie dubbed us in your name as knight-bannerets," Agathe said. "With my wrench. Did I mention we were a little tipsy then?"  
  
"Oh! That sort of knight." Martellus bowed. "Then permit me to make it official, Dame Pandorée. As for you, young man, in time I might persuade you to take service with me."  
  
"Paris comes first, your highness," Jim said.  
  
"Of course it does." Martellus offered his hand. "Come my dear. We shall both unveil the artifact of yours you have so generously put into my keeping."  
  
"I would be honored, your highness," Agathe replied, accepting it.  
  
"Psst. Agathe, what's going on?" Jim whispered, as they were lead towards a table covered with a cloth.  
  
"I'm not sure, Jim," Agathe whispered back. "But I think this is part of a game that Seffie told me about."  
  
"What are the rules?"  
  
"Rules are for players," Agathe whispered back as she gazed up at von Blitzengaard. "I think we're the pieces here."


End file.
